Activision’s Influence On Blizzard And The StarCraft 2 Trilogy / Release Date
April 16th, 2009
Let me make one thing very clear, I don’t like the way Activision treats game IP’s and franchises. They take an excellent franchise, like the Tony Hawk series, and milk it for all it’s worth before putting its crippled and mistreated body out to pasture. The Guitar Hero series, one of my favorite console games of this generation, has had SIX iterations since 2007. The seventh, a greatest hits collection, is on its way.
Activision is the new EA, a company that aims to make as much money as they possibly can without taking any creative risks. Financially, it makes perfect sense. All those boring corporate types love that kind of attitude towards business; low risk and high reward.
However, the gaming medium is an entertainment and arts medium that needs innovation for it to evolve and move forward. Imagine if the film medium remained where it was 50 years ago? All we would be able to watch is stupid musicals day in and day out. Now, consider that reality if Activision was wholly in charge of the gaming medium’s evolution… Not such a pretty picture is it?
What, I hear you ask, is a rant about Activision’s business practices doing in a StarCraft 2 blog? Well it’s very simple. In December 2007, Vivendi Games and Activision did a merger of sorts. This deal was finalized in July of last year, and a new company arose from the ashes of Activision and Vivendi Games: Activision – Blizzard. The last part of that phrase is what’s so pertinent right now.
Blizzard (thankfully) was granted a great deal of freedom as they are perfectly capable of making buckets of money without killing their franchises. WoW, for example, has approximately TWELVE MILLION active subscribers. That’s $15 per month, per subscriber. My brain cannot even quantify that amount of money.
This leads me to StarCraft 2. Blizzard announced it at BlizzCon 07, to hordes of rabid fans that almost exploded with excitement at the prospect of returning to StarCraft’s universe. Then, the merger happened. At BlizzCon 08, it was announced that StarCraft 2 would be a trilogy of games. Notice how the moment Activision gets involved with Blizzard a $60 game becomes a $180 game?
Rob Pardo, executive VP of game design, and Chris Sigaty, Lead Producer, have tried very hard to persuade us that the trilogy idea is the best way forward for StarCraft 2. Ultimately, they have failed dismally.
They have been developing the game since they finished Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, six years ago. Then, they decided to do the trilogy split after getting everyone so excited in 2007 about its pending release. I’m sorry, but that’s absolute nonsense. Blizzard has had the utmost respect for its community for years, and then they pull a stunt like that? The only difference between then and now – Activision.
Okay, let’s consider the first installment gets released and we all rush out to purchase it so we can savor the sweet nectar of Blizzards efforts. We finish the single player campaign and rush off to enjoy the Battle.net experience.
A year later, the second part of the trilogy gets released, and we have no interest in it because we don’t feel the second installment of $60 is worth it. We expect to continue our multiplayer battle.net fun in the same vein as before, right? Wrong.
(Quoted from a Joystiq interview with Chris Sigaty.) “Each campaign will add something to the multiplayer game.” This means we will have to purchase every part of the trilogy just to keep enjoying an up to date multiplayer experience. There is no way around the preposterous $180 price point.
Blizzard, your fans put their utmost trust in you to make a stellar game. WarCraft 2 was the beginning of a golden age of PC gaming for many gamers because each game you made after that was a pleasure to play and a self-contained experience. Now you are, and this is a difficult thing for me to say, screwing us over.
If Diablo 3 was released with only 1 class, and we had to wait an entire year to play with another class, the gaming world would laugh at you. However, because it is StarCraft, this kind of business practice is acceptable?
Of course it isn’t, but you are Blizzard – the golden business in PC gaming – so it’s fine.
Every time anything good gets within spitting distance of Activision, they abuse it, and StarCraft 2 is no different.
Next time, I will have a look at the Blizzard community’s effect on StarCraft 2’s development. Yes I said that two weeks ago, but I really mean it this time.
im begging 
Plizzz send CD key at...
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15 responses so far
Jason // Apr 16, 2009 at 6:47 am
Blizzard / Activision merger aside I’m a bit worried about the StarCraft 2 trilogy. They are saying that each campaign should be between 26-30 missions (as per wikipedia). While I’m hoping that each mission will be part of an amazing story I’m worried about them putting in extra things that defer from the story just to meet that 26-30 mission mark.
Blizzard has high standards to meet due to the original StarCraft so lets hope they keep the same influence on StarCraft 2 and deliver the same quality game across the trilogy.
Lostman // Apr 16, 2009 at 7:06 am
It might actually work out. Take Dawn of War II -> it has only one SP campaign. I’d like to see more coming via expansions. Excellent, well crafted single-player campaigns… This way I could play the game for years.
I agree though that $60 for each Starcraft II “expansion” is way too much! World is going in wrong direction. Like with DLC. The idea is abused so much that it’s unbelievable. Features you’d normally expect out of the box are left out and then you have to pay for them extra under the badge of DLC… This sux.
You should buy SC2 and then buy extra campaigns as DLC – this makes A WHOLE LOT of sense on many levels:
(i) developers get more money out of DLC (all?) because there is no stupid retails box
(ii) i think sometimes they don’t have to pay (as much? at all?) tax for this money (there was article somewhere about California wanting to tax DLC)
(iii) ends up being cheaper for players
crazythan // Apr 16, 2009 at 9:43 am
It’s not just activision… Blizzard has been letting fans down for along time. There customer service was always terrible, but the company started a steady decline in quality since D2. Diablo 2 = great game with a slow released that made the graphics suck. War 3 = great editor, but had mediocre game play. WoW turned the players into the peon collect wolf pelts and other nonsense. Terrible graphics, terrible game play, and it’s simply not fun. Blizz found that gamers would get addicted to a grind and ran with it…. Have you honestly ever heard a gamer say, “I wanna get on an play wow because it’s so much fun?” or do they say things like, “Man, I gotta get my lvl 34 rouge up…”
Make Note... // Apr 16, 2009 at 1:46 pm
that the ‘Activision – Blizzard’ name is what the Vivendi name used to be for blizzard.
‘Activision – Blizzard’ is a publishing company, and not replacing, nor merging with Blizzard the development studio. In the past Blizzard has always called their own shots, and will continue to do so.
Also, If you’ve liked previous Blizzard games, and their associated expansions then i wouldn’t worry to much about starcraft II and it’s 2 expansions that follow. While it’s my opinion, i’ve yet to feel like they delivered a mediocre expansion to any of their games.
The current decision (releasing with only a terran campaign) may make you draw a raised eyebrow but first decide what your opinion of their track record is for their past games, and use that to see how well wheighted your concerns should be.
In the end, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
MW // Apr 16, 2009 at 6:55 pm
They should have never called it a trilogy. Its just SC2 with 2 Xpacs. I highly doubt it will be $60 for each
Karl // Apr 17, 2009 at 6:57 am
@crazythan : I dont agree with you on WoW. It is an MMO and if you don’t like the genre than WoW won’t appeal to you in the first place. I have tried it, and I can see how Blizzard have made a phenomenal persistent world and the expansions have been great too. Its a good game
.
@Make Note : Never underestimate the publishers and their meddling. Why do you think some franchises have become so stale over the years? Sometimes its the developers who truly lack inspiration to push forward the game, and sometimes its the publishers forcing the developers. Polyphony Digital, creators of Gran Turismo, will probably never ever make any other game because Sony won’t let them.
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Trenton Stahl // May 5, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Personally, I don’t have much of a problem with Activision. Sure, they are starting adopt practices that are dubious, but there are good things coming from this.
For me, the story and characters are more important than multiplayer. If they do it in three installments, it will most likely make the whole scenario longer, and better.
And who knows, maybe since they wont have to cram it all into one disk, the cinematics will be better.
Trenton Stahl
http://www.AdvancedApathy.com
Well... // May 16, 2009 at 10:14 am
I’ve always found Blizzard’s releases endlessly entertaining and pleasing, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until I can play the individual games myself. As for each game being $60, I don’t think they’d fuck us like that. Maybe more like $30 or so.
Schlifer // Feb 13, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Well i believe they can juice up the price on the first release but if they keep the other releases on a smaller amount of money cost such as yea 30 bucks or even 25 bucks it would be nice to enjoy it all but if every new starcraft game is the same cost while you have already access to everything available in the first release except the fancy new campaigns then it is guaranteed to fail and then there is only the waiting game until prices fall to the amount of money you want to buy it for, as for me i like the Terran race, and playing everything it has to offer on multiplayer while other races are not fully available perhaps without the other parts of the game, ill wait until prices fall to a more sensible cost of purchase.
Nomailx // Jul 23, 2010 at 10:05 am
Dudes, Blizz didn’t learn to be greedy from Activision. You are giving Blizzard too much credits.
Blizzard never was a creative company. Every units, every race, every class they designed in their games comes from popular media or Artworks. Here is a list of the ultimate sources of the games, litterature and movies they stole all their ideas:
lords of the rings (warcraft series). Dante’s devine comedy (diablo), starship troopers + stargate + Aliens (starcraft series).
And for the game units and system they stole a lot from warhammer, dune, command and conquer 3.
Also, when blizzard first brought Diablo 2, you could find data in the install about two classes that you couldn’t play yet! It means that they already coded the two classes in Diablo 2 but they made you wait for it’s expansion to let you play with them (druid and assassin).
So Blizzard already knew how to split a job already done, and to make customers pay twice for it.
In short, you give too much credits to blizzard, and accuse activision of corrupting them, while in fact, Blizzard is already corrupt from the start.
Nici // Jul 24, 2010 at 5:23 am
lol
i hope blizzard will still make quality games in future, the rest i dont care
Sammie // Jul 29, 2010 at 7:41 am
i got the game yesterday and its just incredible. And the map editor is even bigger than the one from wc3. Ima spend yeears playing this game !!
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